Design and Technology

Intent

At Bandon Hill Primary School, we are all designers and technologists. We are committed to providing all children with learning opportunities to engage in design and technology.

As a school, we believe design and technology is about designing and making products for a specific user and purpose. We believe it is important for Design and Technology to provide children with a real life context. It involves children in learning about the world we live in and developing a wide range of knowledge and skills through designing and making. It helps children to think through problems creatively, about how to organise themselves and how to use knowledge and skills to bring about change and to shape the environment. Children become selective and informed users of products and become innovators..

At Bandon Hill, we believe Design and Technology offers opportunities for children to develop their capability to create high quality products through combining their designing and making skills with knowledge and understanding. We aim to nurture creativity and innovation through designing and making and develop a sense of enjoyment and pride in their ability to make. Our DT curriculum offers opportunities for children to develop an interest and understanding of the ways in which people from the past and present have used design to meet their needs. Our DT curriculum provides children with opportunities to research, represent their ideas, explore and investigate, develop their ideas, make a product and evaluate their work.

Implementation

To ensure high standards of teaching and learning in Design and Technology, we implement a curriculum that is progressive throughout the whole school. Design and Technology is taught in block units, alternating with Art and Design each half term, focusing on the knowledge and skills stated in the National Curriculum. At Bandon Hill Primary School, we ensure that Design and Technology is given the same importance as the core subjects, as we feel this is vital in enabling all children to gain ‘real-life’ experiences and to provide maximum opportunities to embed deeper learning.

The Design and Technology curriculum at Bandon Hill Primary School is based upon the 2014 Primary National Curriculum in England, which provides a broad framework and outlines the knowledge and skills taught in each Key Stage. Teachers plan lessons for their class using our progression of knowledge and skills document. The progression document ensures the National Curriculum is covered and the skills/knowledge taught is progressive from year group to year group enabling children to acquire knowing and remembering at a deeper level.

Teaching of Design and Technology at Bandon Hill follows the design, make and evaluate cycle. Each stage is rooted in technical knowledge.  The design process is rooted in real life, relevant contexts to give meaning to learning. While making, children are given choice and a range of tools to choose freely from. When completed, children should be able to evaluate their own products against a design criteria and suggest ways for improvements. There should be evidence in each of these stages in the DT books, which should also develop to show clear progression across the key stages as they are passed up through each year group.

 Through Expressive Arts in EYFS, children are encouraged to construct and create purposefully selecting tools and techniques needed to shape, assemble and join materials they are using. children learn through first-hand experiences which involve putting their ideas into practice to develop an awareness and understanding of the possibilities and limitations of different materials. Practitioners encourage children to explore, observe, solve problems, think critically, make decisions and talk about why they have made their decisions as they design and create. Children’s natural creativity is fostered and opportunities for investigation, designing and making are offered daily within our provision, which enables children to learn a great deal about their world.

Impact

Within Design and Technology, children use creativity and imagination, they design and make products that solve real and relevant problems within a variety of contexts, considering their own and others’ needs, wants and values. They acquire a broad range of subject knowledge and draw on disciplines such as mathematics, science, engineering, computing and art. Pupils learn how to take risks, becoming resourceful, innovative, enterprising and capable citizens ready to take part in the development of tomorrow’s rapidly changing world. As designers children will develop skills and attributes they can use beyond school and into adulthood. Through the evaluation of past and present design and technology, they develop a critical understanding of its impact on daily life and the wider world.

We measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:

• Summative assessment of pupil discussions about their learning.
• Images of the children’s practical learning.
• Pupils completed products.
• Interviewing the pupils about their learning (pupil voice).
• Pupil’s books are scrutinised and there is the opportunity for a dialogue between teachers to understand their class’s work.
• Marking of work in books against the school marking policy.

Click here to see our design and technology skills progression document.

Click here to see our music national curriculum coverage grid.

Click here to see the National Curriculum Programme of Study for design & technology.

Click here to see our long term plan.